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DECEMBER, 1884.)
PTOLEMY'S GEOG. BK. VII, CH. 1, SS 66, 67.
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these devotees may be assigned to the valley of the Tapti or Tapi (the Nanagouna of Ptolemy) to the south of the more western portion of the Vindhyas that produced the sardonyx.
Prapiêtai:-Lassen locates this people, including the subject race called the Rhamnai, in the upper half of the Narmadá valley. From the circumstance that diamonds were found near Kösa, one of their towns, he infers that their territory extended as far as the Upper Varada, where diamond mines were known to have existed. Kösa was probably situated in the neighbourhood of Baital, north of the sources of the Tapti and the Varada.
Rhamnai:-The name of this people is one of the oldest in Indian ethnography. Their early seat was in the land of the Oreftai and Arabitai beyond the Indus, where they had a capital called Rhambakia. As they were connected by race with the Brahui, whose speech must be considered as belonging to the Dekhan group of languages, we have here, says Lassen (Ind. Alt, vol. III, p. 174), a fresh proof confirming the view that before the arrival of the Aryans all India, together with Gedrðsia, was inhabited by the tribes of the same widely diffused aboriginal race, and that the Rhamnai, who had at one time been settled in Gedrôsia, had wandered thence as far as the Vindhya mountains. Yule conjectures that the Rhamnai may perhaps be associated with Ramagiri, now Ramtek, a famous holy place near Nagpar. The towns of the Prapidtai, four in number, cannot with certainty be identified.
66. About the Nanagouna are the Phyllita i and the Bettigoi, including the Kandaloi along the country of the Phyllitai and the river, and the Ambas tai along the country of the Bettigoi and the mountain range, and the following towns :
67. Agara ...................129° 20' 25° Adeissthra ........................128° 30' 24° 30' Soara ......
..............124° 20' 24° Nygdogora.........................125° 23° Anara..............
........122° 30' 22° 20' The Phyllitai occupied the banks of the Tapti lower down than the Rhamnai, and extended northward to the Satpura range. Lassen considers their name as a transliteration of Bhilla, with an appended Greek termination. The Bhils are a well-known wild tribe spread to this day not only on the Upper Narmada and the parts of the Vindhya chain adjoining, but wider still towards the south and west. In Ptolemy's time their seats appear to have been further to the east than at present. Yule thinks it
not impossible that the Phyllitai and the Drilophyllitai may represent the Puļinda, a name which, as has already been stated, is given in Hindd works to a variety of aboriginal races. According to Caldwell (Drav. Gram., p. 464) the name Bhilla (vil, bil) means 'a bow.'
Bêttigoi is the correct reading, and if the name denotes, as it is natural to suppose, the people living near Mount Bêttigô, then Ptolemy has altogether displaced them, for their real seats were in the country between the Koim. batur Gap and the southern extremity of the Peninsula.
Kandaloi:-Lassen suspects that the reading here should be Gondaloi, as the Gonds (who are nearly identical with the Khands) are an ancient race that belonged to the parts here indicated. Yule, however, points out that Kuntaladeśa and the Kantalas appear frequently in lists and in inscriptions. The country was that, he adds, of which Kalyan was in after days the capital (Elliot, Jour. R. As. 8. vol. IV, p. 3).
Ambas tai:-These represent the Ambashtha of Sanskrit, a people mentioned in the Epics, where it is said that they fought with the club for a weapon. In the Laws of Manu the name is applied to one of the mixed castes which practised the healing art. A people called Ambautai are mentioned by our author as settled in the east of the country of the Paropanisadai. Lassen thinks these may have been connected in some way with the Ambastai. Their locality is quite uncertain. In Yule's map they are placed doubtfully to the south of the sources of the Mahanadi of Orissa.
Of the four towns, Agara, Soara, Nygdosora and Anara, in section 67, nothing is known.
Adeisa thra:-It would appear that there were two places in Ancient India which bore the name of Ahich hattra, the one called by Ptolemy Adisdara (for Adisadra), and the other as here, Adeisathra. Adisdara, as has been already shown, was a city of Rohilkhand. Adeisathra, on the other hand, lay near to the centre of India. Yule quotes-authorities which seem to place it, he says, near the Vindhyas or the Narmada. He refers also to an inscription which mentions it as on the Sindhu River, which he takes to be either the Kali-sindh of MAlwa, or the Little Kali. sindh further west, which seems to be the Sindhu of the Meghadata. Ptolemy, singularly enough, disjoins Adeisathra from the territory of the Adeisathroi, where we would naturally expect him to place it. Probably, as Yule remarks, he took the name of the people from some Pauranik ethnio list and the name of the city from a traveller's route, and thus failed to make them fall into proper relation to each other.
